You are here

Reality

This is what we need to repeat for everyone.This is Reality. Share it. Repeat it ad infinitum.

Make sure this reality - ~actual~ reality - is propagated everywhere. Help quench the pseudo-reality that the GOP, Tea Party, Libertarians & conservative "media" have been living in for the past 4 years.

We need to wake them up. We need this term to be the defining one - the one where our nation actually, truly begins recovery.

While I'm not thrilled with the "How many muslims does a black guy have to kill before the crackers climb down off his ass?" - I would have preferred "terrorists" or even "radical muslims" instead of broad-brushing muslims as a whole, the overall takedown of the GOP is otherwise pretty good:

In essence, the GOP is neither a party of fiscal responsibility nor a party that's strong on national defense - it's a party that's strong on fear-mongering, ignorant self-service and self-propagation at the expense of everything and everyone.

Further explorations of the Tea-Bagged Right's 'Neverland' fantasy world, taken from an ongoing discussion at DelphiForums. Here, one of the folks mentions a common element to a popular form of "I've found Jesus" stories, and my response. Feel free to pick up the conversation in the comments below.

>> It's common in some right-wing Christian circles to claim 'dabbling in Witchcraft' before they found Jesus as a way to strengthen their conversation story.

Those stories almost always fall apart when looked at by any actual Modern Pagan and/or Witch. <<

Those stories use a type of common myth-perception that reinforces the need to ~not~ bother to verify facts, as those facts would shatter their ongoing narrative with shards of awareness from the realm of reality.

That won't do for those who prefer to live in the comfy-zone of mentally unchallenged thought and wild conspiracy-theory based fantasy.

If any of their fellow myth-perceiving Tea Bagged masses happen to stumble across the article, they'll have the ability to read the linked Wikipedia citations.

The vast majority won't, judging from past experience. A few enterprising ones may check to see where the link goes and will likely announce "Wikipedia? That's not a reliable source!" and the rest of the rabble will take up the call like a shield, reinforcing their collective mental shield against any assault of information or reason and protecting their groupthink mentality from harm.

Ever wonder about your relative place in the Universe? Well, someone did. And that someone -- or group of "someones" -- put this together. From the YouTube information:

__________

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

The following is a lengthy but nonetheless worthwhile video about open-mindedness, posted to YouTube by QualiaSoup on March 31, 2009:

Share it widely. It's not likely to open the minds of many who have already sealed their minds shut, but it might catch a few off guard, squeak past their "evidence" filters and lodge itself in the recesses of the mind, where it will lay in wait for the perfect moment to leap out and surprise them with a critical thought or momentary lapse of insanity...bwah-hahahahaha!

*Ahem* Sorry. We now return to your regularly scheduled thread, already in progress...

I've noticed that nobody is calling the pundits and traditional media out on their statements of myth as fact -- myths like:

the Surge worked

we've 'defeated' Al Qaeda in Iraq

C'mon, folks -- don't let the spinmeisters and liemasters succeed in rewriting reality to further pollute history. If you don't want to call 'em out on their b.s. directly, simply make it a habit to restate and correct their b.s. on the fly and then continue making your point.

Don't let them ingrain their b.s. into the collective consciousness.

These are the facts and realities:

The Surge failed. Period. It was a change in strategy that our commanders on the ground made that enabled us to take advantage of the situation with regard to paying local militants to help fight against the insurgency. The Pentagon said this pretty clearly, in direct contrast to the Bush White House.

WE are THE REASON for 'Al Qaeda in Iraq'. Al Qaeda wasn't there before we invaded; afterward, we had to create a special nomenclature called "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to describe the establishment of a foothold that waltzed in across the unsecured borders our "fearless" (clueless) former CiC and his mass minions were responsible for; it was their idiocy and mismanagement of a misguided, illegal invasion -- totally disregarding our military's seasoned leaders -- that led to the introduction of 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' in the first place.

After seeing the ever-widening gaps between the diverging realities of the real world and world that lives on only in the minds of desperate Conservative Republicans, the only thing that comes to mind is this XKCD cartoon:

Since when did phones start playing personal theme music, and why does it matter?

Is it a new "big badge of cool" for everybody and their brother to attempt to lay claim to in their mad dash to be unique among the ragged rabble and wretched refuse of all the other folks scrambling to portray their own special unique identity...just like everyone else in the "cool" crowd?

Originally posted on DelphiForums on 20 September 2008 1:14 pm EST; reposted here at my invitation and request. -- GH

If you were deaf, dumb & blind and from another planet, you might not have noticed that Barack Obama is the first African-American major candidate for President. Otherwise, you know. Therefore, all the discussions and endless analyses during the primaries and general election of the impact of race, while unfortunate, have been relevant.

The conventional wisdom has been that, despite the senile stumbling and malicious lying of McCain, too many voters, no matter what they tell the pollsters, will be overcome by racism when they go into the voting booth. Many Americans don't make their final decisions on whom to vote for until late September or October. Therefore, until recently, I've somewhat tolerated the whining of the practitioners of conventional wisdom & defeatism who genuinely felt Obama couldn't win because of racism. Some polls from early to mid-September showing McCain with a slight lead over Obama only added fuel to the fire of racial fatalism.

As we wait for the many coming books, I'm sure more will be surfacing, as many try to cleanse their souls, of these last eight years plus, in seeking their higher kingdom, we might have the time to take this seemingly telling descriptive tale into the fold of good reading. We could even make the copies a collective item reminding us, in a comfortable way, of what we've been put through, us and the rest of the world. Comfortable because it might not enrage as we read and study the pictures, like the hard reality of the history will.

Although there is a major distinction between the tenure of a freshman in high school and that of a college freshmen, there is still one thing that comes to bring these two separate worlds together-grades and the frustration that comes along with it. As time goes on, it becomes harder for both students in senior primary school and colleges (of any level) to accomplish the ultimate goal of passing on to the year ahead.